EDITORIAL: Brace yourself, the world is ending ... again

A week from today the Mayan calendar comes to an end and with it, thousands (millions?) of people worldwide believe, the Apocalypse.

But we feel like Rocket J. Squirrel.

When Bullwinkle would say, "Hey Rock, watch me pull a rabbit out of my hat," the friendly flying squirrel always replied with a sing-songy, "Again?"

The last well-publicized "end of the world" prediction, came from a religious leader named Harold Camping, who predicted "Judgement Day" would arrive on May 21, 2011. It didn't.

After apologizing to his followers for being wrong, Camping said he had his dates wrong. The actual end of the world would occur on Oct. 21, 2011. And if the world did end, we missed it, and stupidly continued coming to work.

Now comes the new end of days.

According to Associated Press writer Jack Chang:

"The clock is ticking down to Dec. 21, the supposed end of the Mayan calendar, and from China to California to Mexico, thousands are getting ready for what they think is going to be a fateful day.

"The Maya didn't say much about what would happen next, after a 5,125-year cycle known as the Long Count comes to an end. So into that void have rushed occult writers, bloggers and New Age visionaries foreseeing all manner of monumental change, from doomsday to a new age of enlightenment.

Chang introduces us to Lu Zhenghai and Yang Zongfu, two Chinese men who believe a giant flood - or worse - is coming. Zhenghai spent his life savings $160,000 building a 70-foot-by-50-foot ark. (Don't ask us how man cubits that is.) Zongfu constructed a three-ton yellow steel ball 13 meters in diameter that is built to survive earthquakes, volcanoes and tsunamis.

(But does it have cable?)

Chang reports that Jose Manrique Esquivel, "a descendent of the Maya, said his community in Mexico's Yucatan peninsula sees the date as a celebration of their survival despite centuries of genocide and oppression. He blamed profiteers looking to scam the gullible for stoking doomsday fears."

Escquivel sees Dec. 21 is the end of a great era, and the beginning of an even better one.

Color us skeptical. Especially given that Escquivel also claims the new era is, "a chance to raise awareness about rescuing the planet, not prepare for its demise.

According to him: "People all over the world need to focus on the very real damage people have done to the Earth, he said, and sound the alarm about growing catastrophes, such as climate change. We're putting in danger the existence of our world."

We have serious doubts about that but Escquivel can be forgiven for thinking so. After all, serious people have been pushing the idea that fossil fuel-created global warming is likely to be the end of civilization as we know it before 2100.

Global warming proponents have prophesized a 6-degree increase in the global temperature and predicted it would "cause a mass extinction of almost all life and probably reduce humanity to a few struggling groups of embattled survivors clinging to life near the poles."

Well, we'll have to see about that.

In the meantime, Mayan calendar or no Mayan calendar, we aren't going to put off our Christmas shopping 'til the last minute.